Can anyone recommend a decent camera?

We've decided to buy ourselves a really good digital camera before our wedding and honeymoon - does anyone have any recommendations? We'll spend about £250 - £300 plus extra for all the memory cards etc.

We've booked a professional photographer too, but I like the idea of being able to give the camera to my mum or dad to take some extra shots, and we're hoping to come back from our new york honeymoon with memory sticks full of great pics!

We've had several cheaper cameras but they've never been that good and always end up shoved in a drawer. The last one was a 6mp kodak easyshare thingy but it was too small to get a decent shot, as it was difficult to hold steady. It didn't have a proper zoom either and the screen was tiny, and always blurred at night.

We want one that will give really crisp, high resolution pictures and can also take good night-time photos for all those pictures of times square!

We have an amazing camera...Probably the same one as Jodi's as its Sony...I am just going downstairs to get it and will tell you...it has video on it and camera and is sooo cool and takes excellent photos.

We have an amazing camera...Probably the same one as Jodi's as its Sony...I am just going downstairs to get it and will tell you...it has video on it and camera and is sooo cool and takes excellent photos.

Yes yes yes. I buy a camera every year because i love taking pics and if you are going to buy one it has got to be a sony cybershot. The picture quality is brilliant. I won't be changing this for a while now! It even fits in your handbag (as i take mine everywhere)

The only problem with sony is the memory stick, once you start on sony you feel you have to stick to sony because you have all these memory sticks and only sony take them.

My advice would be buy a camera by either Canon, Nikon or Pentax. They all use SD memory, so in the future you can chop between brands and still keep your memory cards.

The lens is as important as the megapixels a good quality lens on a 4mp camera will get you better pictures than a rubbish lens on a 8mp camera.

Night photography is a whole new ball game, it takes special skills (easily learnt) but blurred pics will happen if you don't know how to take pics at night or in low light (without flash)

Small cameras and large cameras are equally hard/easy to hold steady, again it's more about technique rather than size or weight.

They are blurred (not out of focus) because the lens is open to the light for too long anything over 1/30th of a second is almost impossible to hand-hold steady enough not have camera shake. To force the lens to open for less time you can increase the sensitivity to light (ISO) to say 400 or 800 or you can take away the shake altogether with a tripod.

A tripod would make the night photography 100x easier and the the steadyness becomes a non issue.

Zoom-wise, look for OPTICAL zoom 3x or more at least. Cameras have optical and digital zoom and added together the figures can be impressive (25x zoom) However use the digital zoom and all you're doing is cropping the image on the screen and not getting close so the image is steadily becoming smaller and therefore of less quality. Don't use digital zoom, use software to zoom/crop the image after the picture is taken.

So, if being ultra sensible I'd say buy a tripod (£20 max on ebay) practice the type of shots you want on your kodak camera - buy or read up on the techniques you need for night shots.

Not at all mrsbulltobe but i know having a tripod is essential to cover the ceremony, even the smallest lightest video camera can weigh a ton after 10 minutes of holding it still! It's also handy to have a tripod for the 1st dance, as again low light can make it hard to get good shots. Other than that and to completely contradict myself I'd go for Sony! We bought a digital camcorder to go on holiday with and not knowing much about them went for a Sony which take mini-dvds. The one we got cost around £275.

I have a Minolta Maxxum 5D which I got in New York and got loads of extras with it! It is an SLR digital camera but I went for Minolta as I have a very old 7000i and a 505si and I can interchange all the lens. They are all very easy to use and idiot proof!

I also have a Hp Photosmart R707 which takes video clips and is quite good and you can stick it in your handbag or pocket but I still prefer my Minolta for the best shots.

I also have a Sony handycam video recorder which is great and we put it on the tripod and video'd the wedding and my nephew hand held it and recorded some of the reception. But I would say that it is light but does become heavy if you hold it up for a long time. Although I think if they were out when I got mine I would of got a dvd recorder instead of the video.